A Good Tenant Cannot Fix a Bad Mall Experience
Recently, I passed by B1Mall again and noticed that one of the shops I really liked had closed. Grandiose. I used to visit it often. It had many qualities you would expect from a strong anchor tenant – good food, reasonable prices, frequent promotions, and a wide variety of products. But I also knew the […]
Dubai Doesn’t Need a 93 km Walkway. It Needs a Connected Walking Network.
Every city eventually faces the same question:How do we encourage people to leave their cars behind? The answer is rarely found in building a longer walkway. The world’s most walkable cities first remove the everyday barriers that prevent people from walking. Seoul transformed an elevated highway into Seoullo7017, reconnecting parts of the city divided by […]
Dubai Doesn’t Need a 93 km Walkway. It Needs Walkable Communities.
Every time I see Dubai’s proposed 93 km walkable corridor, I ask the same question: Why 93 kilometers? Every major urban intervention should begin with a clearly defined problem, not with the size of the solution. Walking is not an attraction or destination. It is a daily habit. A long pedestrian corridor may look impressive […]
“Less is More.” or “Less is a Bore.”
Which one do you prefer? Some defend Modernism.Others celebrate Postmodernism. But I think we may be asking the wrong question.The real question is not whether less is more or less is a bore. The real question is:Why were these ideas created in the first place? Mies was not simply telling architects to make everything minimal.He […]
Why Walking Might Be the Most Powerful Idea We Forgot — And How It Can Change Dubai
Have you ever heard of a walking meeting?At first, it sounds too simple to be meaningful — just walk and talk. But Steve Jobs didn’t think so. He held his most important conversations on long walks, not in boardrooms.Years later, Stanford researchers discovered why: Walking boosts creative thinking by nearly 60%. It wakes up the […]
Rethinking Traffic and Walkability – Masari Walk
I’ve experienced traffic in many cities.But one moment still stays with me. Mumbai. 2007.I was there for the airport project. And the traffic—it wasn’t just busy.It was overwhelming. Not the kind you forget.The kind that stays with you. Even today, nothing has really changed.Most major cities still struggle with the same issue. Dubai is no […]
World Trade Centre to Pearl – Ferry : Masari Walk
Being an architect, I feel Dubai’s pulse like no one else—those jammed streets near Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) screamed for a fix during the 2024 expos, a cry that still lingers in my mind. Weekdays, reports say drivers lose 35 hours a year to Sheikh Zayed Road, with 12-minute delays. But during expos like […]
What is Design Beyond Form
Most architecture starts with a shape, a concept, or a striking image.That’s how we’re taught. That’s how we often begin. But over the years, I started asking—what if we began somewhere else? In this video, I share the heart of Design Beyond Form—a philosophy I’ve been shaping for over two decades, through projects across different […]
Walkability
Walkability isn’t just about designing a path—it’s about designing a life people want to live. Masari Walk was never just a project to me. It was a question:How do we make cities feel like they belong to the people again? In this video, I want to share what walkability really means.It’s not just movement—it’s memory.It’s […]
Masari Walk — A Path Shaped by Context
Dubai—a city of ambition, vision, and relentless transformation. But beyond the speed and spectacle, I found myself asking:Where does its soul live? Design Beyond Form isn’t just a philosophy—it’s how I design.It’s about paying attention to context, to culture, to how people truly live and feel.And when you design with that mindset, something unexpected happens:You […]